Awesome Hi Def Launch Videos from Endeavour

As the shuttle era frenetically draws to a close, the launch views of the thunderous climb to orbit captured by NASA just get ever more stunning and vividly illustrate what it’s like to liftoff to space.

Check out this awesome collection of high definition videos of Endeavour’s final blast off as recorded by cameras mounted on each of the twin solid rocket boosters (SRB’s) from multiple viewpoints.

The STS-134 mission lifted off on May 16 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cameras show the launch from numerous spectacular angles and vantage points, pointed down to Earth and up to space, from alongside the belly of the orbiter and along the sides of the SRB’s.

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The videos show all the phases of the SRB in flight – including separation, parachute deployment and all the way to the dramatic splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean with rapidly changing backgrounds of the launch pad, Earth and Space.

The STS-134 mission is the 25th and final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, NASA youngest orbiter.

Endeavour’s six man crew is led by Shuttle Commander Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. She was shot at point blank range and critically wounded during a routine congressional meet and greet with her constituents in January 2011.

Endeavour is set to land back at KSC on June 1 at 2:32 a.m. EDT after a 16 day mission to the International Space Station. The crew carried up the $2 Billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and attached this wor;ld class science instrument to the truss of the ISS. The AMS is a particle physics detector searching for antimatter, dark energy and dark matter. The goal is to elucidate the birth and evolution of the Universe.

Side view of shuttle Endeavour stack and access walkways.
NASA released stunning launch videos taken from cameras mounted on multiple spots around the twin Solid Rocket boosters shown here, including dramatic views with the orbiter belly rocketing to space. Credit: Ken Kremer

10 Replies to “Awesome Hi Def Launch Videos from Endeavour”

Not to be a nay-saying-Ned… and I KNOW that MANY people find this fascinating (I myself am a huge space enthusiast, don’t get me wrong), and I agree that the end of this era is a bitter-sweet milestone in human space exploration… but I’m beginning to get “Royal Wedding Sickness” from all these news items placing various and sundry bits of space shuttle minutia on the public radar. I can ‘grok’ the coolness of this video, but for me, this is about as deep as I’d like to delve into the whole matter. I mean at this rate, we’re going to be seeing hours long videos of astronauts sleeping and “Bolt-cam” footage from all over the inside and outside of the ship on the next/last go-round later this year… lol! But with that said… “Farewell, Space Shuttle Fleet! May you long live in our collective space exploration dreams!”

Question: Right before splashdown (at 6:48 & 26:21) there’s an explosion and scattering of debris coming from the base of the SRBs, and +-7 seconds later (6:55 and 36:39) something splashes into the water before each of the SRBs.